Largely, I agree with what you say. Going Manual is even better. My point was/is that in this kind of shots you need to think about shutter speed first, then aperture and ISO as required to get a proper exposure.

Yes, for sure!

No, I have never made this kind of shot at night, and I could have easily missed it as well; it's not always easy to make the right decision when time is of the essence

I guess that is were practice comes in! Make sure that the decisions are good ones (using all of that crappy analysis in the first post) and then practice until you can concentrate on the shot at the moment of excitement ... instead of the technicalities.